Thinking about driving in Manhattan this weekend? Think again.

Good morning. It is Friday. We’ll look at why this will be a weekend to love or hate, depending on where you’re going and how you want to get there. We also get details about a request to postpone Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan.

If you like parades or runners, this weekend will be one to enjoy. Two fairly sunny days with temperatures around 50 degrees. Two days to march, run or watch.

If you have to go somewhere and plan to drive and the trip involves Manhattan, your experience will likely be different. You may find yourself snapping about the heavy traffic.

Why? Because it’s a weekend of what Sarah Kaufman, the director of the Rudin Center for Transportation at New York University, called “a confluence.”

Tomorrow the St. Patrick’s Day Parade starts at 11 a.m. on Fifth Avenue

The New York City Half Marathon will make its way from Brooklyn to Manhattan on Sunday. Mile 11 of the 13.1-mile course begins in Times Square. Race officials say this will be the only time, other than New Year’s Eve, that Times Square will be closed to traffic.

No wonder the “weekend traffic advisory,” the city transportation department’s list of streets that will be closed intermittently between now and Monday, is 16 pages long.

“This is a weekend to not even think about taking your car when you go to Manhattan,” said Samuel Schwartz, who was city traffic commissioner in the 1980s and is now a consultant. “Stay on your own two feet or stay underground.”

Of course, he means walking or taking the subway, which is often the fastest way to get around the city anyway.

The diversions this weekend may also affect pedestrians and cyclists. More than two dozen streets in Manhattan will be off-limits to traffic on Saturday or Sunday, while cranes operate on construction sites that cannot be operated on a weekday.

The Transportation Department says street closures, even if planned, are at the discretion of police. Police said “an adequate security overlay would have been deployed” on Saturday and Sunday, but a department spokesperson would not discuss specific arrangements.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

This year it will take place one day before the holiday, as is customary when March 17 is a Sunday. Organizers expect 150,000 demonstrators and two million spectators. State and local officials, including Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams, will participate.

Schwartz said the parade would make traveling through Manhattan difficult.

“It’s a block from Radio City and two blocks from the theater district,” Schwartz said. ‘Matinees are going on in the theatres. People trying to get there from the east, driving from Brooklyn and Queens, will have to cross the parade unless Waze tells them to go around the horn, onto FDR and down the West Side Highway, because there is actually a wall on Fifth Ave. Every now and then the police let some traffic through, but it is difficult for everyone on the side streets.”

NYC Half Marathon

Going “around the horn,” as Schwartz suggested — north on Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive from Lower Manhattan — won’t be an option for several hours Sunday. The FDR will serve as the course for runners in the half marathon from the Manhattan Bridge to West 42nd Street, where they will turn left and head toward Times Square.

The race starts on Washington Avenue near the Brooklyn Museum, with the first group leaving at 7:00 AM. From there, participants continue their way through Prospect Park on their way to Manhattan. After reaching Times Square, they head north on Seventh Avenue, turn onto Central Park South and make their way through Central Park. The finish line is on the west side of the park, near Tavern on the Green.

There will also be the Times Square Kids Run, on a one-mile round trip course, starting at 7:35 a.m.

The event organizer, the New York Road Runners, says participants will include Jacob Kiplimo, the Ugandan runner who won the half marathon last year in the men’s open division in 1 hour 1 minute and 31 seconds, and Hellen Obiri, the Kenyan runner who set a record in the women’s open division last year by finishing in 1:07:21.

The Road Runners also said the field would include Tiki Barber, a former New York Giants running back, and two reality TV figures, Andi Dorfman (of “The Bachelorette” in 2022) and Peter Weber (of “The Bachelor” in 2020).

And on Staten Island

Adams’ office announced last month that Staten Island, the city’s most conservative borough, would hold two St. Patrick’s Day parades. The second, the Forest Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade, starts Sunday at noon and is open to LGBTQ groups. The other parade, the only one in the city in which LGBTQ organizations are still unable to participate, took place on March 3. Adams, a Democrat, has boycotted the Staten Island parade in recent years; a spokeswoman for the mayor said last month that he would attend the Forest Avenue event.

Weather

Prepare for a chance of showers lasting through the evening, with temperatures in the mid-60s. At night, temperatures will dip into the upper 40s.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In effect until March 24 (Purim).

The latest Metro news

Prosecutors who accused Donald Trump of covering up a sex scandal during and after the 2016 presidential campaign proposed delaying the trial by as many as 30 days.

They responded to Trump’s request for a ninety-day delay. He wanted his lawyers to have time to review files that Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecutors had only recently received from federal prosecutors investigating the hush-money payment at the center of the case.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office had requested the data more than a year ago. Bragg’s office said it expected additional material next week.

Bragg said in a court filing that his prosecutors were prepared to start the trial on March 25 as scheduled. But he said they would not oppose a 30-day delay “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure the suspect has sufficient time to review the new materials.”

Judge Juan Merchan, who would have to agree to postpone the trial, has made it a point to continue the case. It’s not clear how soon he might decide on a delay, and until he does, it’s uncertain how Trump’s other business might be affected. A separate criminal case in Washington was scheduled to go to trial this month, but has been postponed as Trump’s lawyers appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Manhattan case stemmed from a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, paid her to suppress her story about a sexual encounter with Trump. Prosecutors say that when Trump reimbursed Cohen, Trump’s family business falsely listed the reimbursements as “legal fees,” withholding potentially damaging information from voters shortly before the election.

METROPOLITAN diary

Tangled up

Dear Diary:

I was walking along Zabar on a sunny spring day when I became tangled in a small dog’s leash.

The owner apologized profusely, although she had nothing to worry about. It only took a moment for me to free myself.

“What happened to the Upper West Side?” the woman said as she made small talk. “I haven’t been here in years. It’s so different from how I remember it.”

“Oh,” I said, “where are you from?”

“The Upper East Side,” she said.

– Peggy Lam

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. – JB

PS Here is today’s Mini crossword And Game competition. You can find all our puzzles here.